Joseph Hobson Jagger (1830–1892) was a British engineer, widely known as The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo, though he is not the only person to have done so. His name is sometimes reported as Jaggers, but the International Genealogical Index indicates that Jagger is more likely. He is also said to be a distant cousin of Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones.[1]
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Jagger was born in September 1830 in the village of Shelf near Halifax, Yorkshire. Jagger gained his practical experience of mechanics working in Yorkshire's cotton manufacturing industry. He extended his experience to the behaviour of a roulette wheel, speculating that its outcomes were not purely random sequences but that mechanical imbalances might result in biases toward particular outcomes.
In 1873, Jagger hired six clerks to clandestinely record the outcomes of the six roulette wheels at the Beaux-Arts Casino at Monte Carlo, Monaco. He discovered that one of the six wheels showed a clear bias, in that nine of the numbers (7, 8, 9, 17, 18, 19, 22, 28 and 29) occurred more frequently than the others. He therefore placed his first bets on 7 July 1875 and quickly won a considerable amount of money, £14,000 (equivalent to around 50 times that amount in 2005, or £700,000, adjusted for inflation). Over the next three days, Jagger amassed £60,000 in earnings with other gamblers in tow emulating his bets. In response the casino rearranged the wheels, which threw Jagger into confusion. After a losing streak, Jagger finally recalled that a scratch he noted on the biased wheel wasn't present. Looking for this telltale mark, Jagger was able to locate his preferred wheel and resumed winning. Counterattacking again, the casino moved the frets, metal dividers between numbers, around daily. Over the next two days Jagger lost and gave up, but he took his remaining earnings, two million francs, then about £65,000 (around £3,250,000 in 2005), and left Monte Carlo never to return.
Jagger resigned from his job at the mill and invested his money in property. He is buried at Bethel Chapel, Halifax Road, Shelf.
In 1892, Fred Gilbert wrote a popular song, The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo, that is mistakenly attributed to Jagger's exploits. Instead, the song commemorates Charles Wells, another Englishman, who in 1891 won handsomely in Monte Carlo. The song was popularised by music hall star Charles Coborn.
An episode of the television show CSI was based on Jagger's motives in Monte Carlo, albeit retold with a Las Vegas theme.
In the game Fallout: New Vegas there is an achievement for being kicked out of every casino on the Las Vegas Strip. The achievement is known as "the Courier who broke the bank", referencing both Joseph and successful gambler Charles Wells.